Uphill idealist

Ash Wednesday is a holy day that brings reflection and contemplation to the center of life. Perhaps for me it's a day to reflect on spiritual matters that I am too busy to notice. Or maybe it is the meeting of slowing down and preparation with the Lenten season being married to the coldest and bleakest times of year in my region (WNY). Either way I love this slow and sad day. It's a sadness that marks the shadows and valleys of life and instead of diminishing or avoiding them - embraces death wholly and if even so bold to mark its presence with a mark on our foreheads. Ash Wednesday and Lent is a time to be honest about our vulnerability and limits. This marking of who we actually are is important, and good, and sad - and probably why I love this melancholy day. As Lent has begun for 2015 I think it will be a time of relenting for me. Relenting seeking something-anything more. Relenting from being better, seeking perfection and longing for someone to see something special in me...

In the mix and business of life, it’s important to have a space to be yourself and simply be. If you think of this space in your own life, where would it be? While living out who we are at home and work are important and time-consuming parts of daily living, there is something to be said for spending time in a space called “Third Space”. In the book The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg spends a great deal of time explaining the differences between: first, second and third spaces. “Oldenburg calls  ones  "first place" the home and those that one lives with. The "second place" is the workplace — where people may actually spend most of their time. Third places, then, are "anchors" of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Oldenburg ) Third space is not something new, but the definition of the places we spend our lives may be a new perspective  to ponder.  Oldenburg’s theory of third space...